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Friday, October 21, 2016

The School for Good and Evil

by Soman Chainani

Date Read: 9/27/16Rating: ★ ★ ★★

I listened to this in audiobook during my commute to and
from work. It was a LONG book; I actually had to re-request it from the library
in order to finish it.

I really enjoyed this book.
I was so intrigued by the plot summary that I had some high
expectations. It reminded me a lot of
Harry Potter with the magic and the lessons, etc, and of course I absolutely
love anything relating to fairy tales!

The main theme of this book was that you don’t have to be
who people think or want you to be. You can choose your own path and make your
own decisions. Beauty is on the inside.

Sophie was utterly horrific. I hated listening to her. She
went from annoying to completely evil over the span of the book. Agatha was such a good, loyal friend to
Sophie, and Sophie just used her. She is
really a terrible person. It’s frustrating that Agatha just won’t let go of
that friendship. Sometimes friends go
opposite directions and that’s ok. That’s life. But Agatha fights till the
bitter end to save her friend.

Agatha – I LOVE Agatha. It’s been a long time since I’ve
enjoyed a main character so much. She isn’t your typical heroine. She loves to
wear black, she hates conforming to what people want her to do, she doesn’t
realize that she has a good soul underneath her not as pretty exterior. She has
very low self-esteem and it takes her almost the entire book until she realizes
her worth and her goodness.

I really liked how the book focused on friendship. Even though Sophie and Agatha were told that
they could never be friends (a princess and a witch can never be friends), they
never stop fighting to get home together.

There were a few times that the story seemed to move slowly
and there were some points where it seemed to wonder to things that didn’t seem
important. In the end Agatha’s trip to Sader’s office is important, but I feel
like it was just thrown in there for Agatha to have the revelation at the end
of the book. It wasn’t written in as seamlessly as it could have been.

I hated the way the book ended!!! It just ENDED. There was ZERO, I mean
absolutely NO wrap up at all. After such a long book I wanted some closure for
our characters but there was none. The author obviously knew he was going to
write a series. But I would have
appreciated just a little wrap up.

Overall I really enjoyed it.
Looking forward to where the author takes the series.